Advertise for the charity of your choice

In MKT 798 last week, we stumbled across SocialVibe, a beta site that connects companies wanting to advertise with social media users. The goal? Earn donations for your favorite charity or cause. Turns out this is different than what our group assumed was the purpose of the site, but it still presents a unique opportunity for charities (including Chicago Tribune Charities) and companies alike.

Users are able to produce a "badge" through the site that they can then post to their MySpace, Facebook, or other social media pages. These badges then earn points which relate to the amount of money that's donated, and are based on the user's activity and influence among the network they're on.

Because the site's fairly new and without having actually tried it personally, it seems like a win-win situation: users can help out a charity without dipping into their own wallets, and companies get advertising exposure. Definitely something I'll be checking out for my own organization as well as using on my social networking profiles.

Below: SocialVibe Badge

Online vs. Print Marketing

My department just held its annual fundraiser last week in which we had over 150 people attend. It's a big deal for us given its revenue generation, and is probably our most widely marketed event all year. I'm now in the process of recapping the event, and making notes of things we should change for next year while it's still fresh in my mind.

One of my concerns is whether the ROI is there for our hard copy invitations we mail out. As you can imagine, the costs involved with designing a print piece, printing, and postage are anything but cheap. We also heavily marketed the fundraiser online via email blasts, our blog, social media outlets, etc.

When all is said and done, we are only aware of 2 registrations that we received from the mailed invitation (attendees are asked to answer how they heard about the event at the time of registration). My first reaction is that the mailer wasn't the best investment/use of marketing dollars, but I have to remind myself of a few things:

1. While most people selected that they heard about the event online, they may have received an invitation which reinforced the original message, or reminded them to register.
2. Until I get a chance to compare our registration list to our mailing database, it's hard to justify my original assumption.
3. If it turns out that our registrations were mostly from people who would not have received the mailed invitation at all, then it may be wise to reconsider doing a mailing for next year.
   

My main quesiton moving forward, however, is if most registrants did in fact receive the mailer but listed "online" as the source, how can we justify (one way or the other) spending money on that campaign?

Online Privacy & Marketing: Can Balance Exist?

My management memo this week featured an article on Google that highlights the scope of information they collect from users, and how that data is being used. Google has developed quite the portfolio when it comes to collecting customer information, and what may/may not be scary to users is that their technologies are becoming even more sophisticated.

This led me to the question: So how do marketers achieve the right balance between highly targeted campaigns, and maintaining customer privacy? Does such a balance even exist? Most internet users understand that the “free” online services they use will almost always come with a cost, which is usually sacrificing some sort of degree of personal privacy. It’s how these businesses make their money, after all, and most individuals are willing to give that up to a certain degree for the sake of convenience and other benefits. It’s very much a give-and-take relationship.

This dilemma can be applied to nonprofit organizations as well, including Chicago Tribune Charities. Once they begin collecting user email addresses on a regular basis and executing online campaigns, how will their donors react? Sure, email solicitations are used all the time, but this particular userbase previously hasn't been exposed to this type of communication from CTC.

More than likely, it'll take some trial and error to figure out the appropriate balance, and getting stakeholder feedback will be critical. There are always trade-offs with trying new marketing campaigns, but hopefully the ROI will make up for any negative feedback they might receive.

Cost-effective marketing

Working for a non-profit, I can relate to what it means to have a "tight" budget, limited staff, and the need to still produce consistent results. It was because of these reasons I was surprised to learn that Chicago Tribune Charities mainly markets its holiday campaign through print advertising and mailings - both of which are fairly expensive when compared to the costs of internet marketing which are minimal at best.

It may take some time to build an email database of past donors and prospects, but once its in place you can immediately begin sending out email campaigns for little/no cost and track the results.

The argument can be made that mailings produce results, so it’s still worth having those campaigns because of its ROI. It may take some trial and error, but once email campaigns start being executed, you can analyze how your database responds to online solicitations vs. mailings.

Launching a CRM App: Learning Experience, or Nightmare?

Don't get me wrong. I am a total advocate for CRM. The first couple of jobs I had straight out of college used databases like ACT and Goldmine, which quickly because my best friends and enabled my anal-retentiveness for being organized at all times. Fortunately (at the time, at least) the systems were already in place, and I never had to worry about implementation.

Fast forward 5-6 years and here I am, in a small office of 4 full-timers, trying DESPERATELY to successfully implement our Salesforce database. Yes, I get that "supposedly" Salesforce can have an organization up-and-running in a matter of hours, but we are coming across what seems to be an endless amount of problems. Will there ever be a light at the end of the tunnel??

1. Probably more time consuming than anything else, cleaning up our data lists - which are coming from multiple sources unfortunately - has proved to be a rather large headache. It'll pay off in the end, but we wanted to try our best to make sure we were not uploading up-to-date/accurate data. No small feat.
2. Importing from several very different lists of data. Sure, there's a "de-dup" feature, but doing this will override any notes/log information already under existing accounts. Also without getting into too much detail, there are instances where we may not want to override the data, which just creates another list of problems.
3. We hold various programs and events, and just launched a membership program. So we are able to use Salesforce for contact management, but we need to use another site to process event/membership registrations. And there isn't an easy way to record this important information under contact accounts unless we manually enter it in, resulting in even more staff time.

I think you probably get my point and can see a recurring theme. Ultimately, I believe we will be more efficient overall with these processes - but for the past year or so it's been an uphill battle and one that has consumed A LOT of time for our staff. I know that there are consulting firms out there to assist with this, but as a non-profit the funds aren't there to support those type of costs.

What have been some of your experiences - or let's just be honest, nightmares - with CRM implementation?

Still Skeptical of Social Media?

Stephanie Furlan, Professional Twitterer.

Sound ridiculous? Maybe at first glance. Unrealistic? Definitely not. Adam Robinson, Founder of illuma – a recruiting support company - tweeted several weeks ago that for the first time he saw Facebook, MySpace and Twitter listed on a resume under technical skills. A true sign of the times to show that so much of our personal and professional communications are quickly moving toward a reliance on social media platforms, making it essential for marketers to use these tools and at the very least be aware of what’s available.

Being in the MBA program, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of other people in the field, some of who are traditional marketers with a ton of experience – but not all necessarily with internet marketing. This leads some people to doubt the potential these channels have within their own companies. For those who have any doubt about the impact social media can have, tell them to check out http://twittervision.com/.



Above: Twittervision.com screenshot

Somewhat creepy AND yet equally as fascinating, don’t you think?

A great example of the power social media can have is the story of a Jessica Cowin, a recent DePaul alum who recently found out she needed a kidney transplant. With the help of sites like Facebook and Twitter, her family was able to raise $21,000 in one week. Yes, one week. Truly an amazing story, and one that should silence critics of social media who think that they don’t serve a legitimate purpose.

But because all these sites are fairly new – at least with respect to traditional marketing communications efforts – companies are still figuring out how to best utilize them. And right now everyone is in the same boat, all of us learning as we go along. Only time, trial and error will tell how/if companies can learn to really embrace this era of new media.